4 things you should know

Does my community need an OSCAR service?

There are many good reasons why your community might need an after school or holiday programme.

• Is it because you see that children need more opportunities and activities in their out of school time?

• Is there a lack of services in your area, providing child care for working parents?

• Are you passionate about arts, sport or maybe music and want to share your skills and experience with children?

• Do children in your community need support for their cultural, social and/or emotional development and you see fun, group-based activities as an effective way to deliver this?

OSCAR is just one possible model for making a positive vision for children into a reality. Being "OSCAR Approved" will usually mean becoming an accredited provider under the Social Sector Accreditation Standards. However, you can run after school and holiday programmes without becoming an accredited provider – it is a voluntary process. Accreditation for OSCAR is explained further here.

So accreditation may or may not be on the horizon. You may have a facility in mind and even have the perfect person to run your programme – maybe yourself. Great! At this point it is a good idea to look at some basic requirements:

• Where is the likely location of your service and where are the local schools?

• What is already on offer for families in the area? Are there other OSCAR services, sports groups, cultural and recreational groups, after school tuition etc

• If you find other similar services in your community, we recommend that you give careful consideration to what benefit there would be in opening another. OSCAR services operate on very tight budgets. The arrival of a new programme serving the same community - while possibly good for parent choice – can end up harming the sustainability of all services in that location.

As you start to get a better picture of the needs in your community, you can make some assessment of its feasibility: is transport required? Will the venue need work to be suitable for children? What are the likely initial costs and a realistic fee? Link to more feasibility guidelines. Some of these topics are discussed further below.

What kind of programme could I offer?

Programmes can come in many shapes, sizes and characteristics. The basic service will largely take shape according to the needs that you identify in your community.

• To be meet the needs of working parents, a programme should be open five days per week.

• Most after school services close by 5.30 or 6 pm, sometimes earlier.

• Holiday programmes may finish for most children at 3 pm but then offer longer hours of care, with additional fees.

• Staff could be paid employees, volunteers or a mix of both. There are no minimum qualifications required, although accredited services must have a person trained in first aid on-site at all times.

• After school operators do not always offer holiday programmes, and smaller holiday programmes can be hard to sustain financially if all the staff are paid.

• Most programmes offer a broad range of activities to cater for different ages and interests but some are focused more on certain activities (e.g. sport, performing arts, cultural expression) or social outcomes (building confidence or good social skills).

• A certain age might be the target group e.g. intermediate age children.

• It is also very likely that once children start attending they will have some everyday input into what activities the programme has on offer - being “child-centred” means being flexible and responsive, with some underlying stable routines and regularity in the programme.

The OSCAR networks also have a great deal of expertise and ideas for how to organise your daily programme. For holiday programmes you can get a lot of useful tips from OSCN’s Holiday Programme Survival Guide.

What about before school care?

Demand for before school care services is generally lower than for after school care, however those parents are often looking hard for options. After school operators tend to take a cautious approach to adding a before school programme, especially if they have accreditation for OSCAR because this requires a minimum of 2 staff to be on site at all times. (An exemption to the 2 staff requirement can be applied for in some circumstances.) There can also be difficulties engaging staff for limited hours, early in the day.

What about the legal aspects? What do I need to know?

The OSCAR sector is not governed by any specific regulations. An operator of an after school or holiday programme will need to comply with relevant legislation such as the Vulnerable Children Act, Health and Safety at Work Act, Employment Relations Act, Privacy Act etc.

There are also "duty of care" obligations to be considered when assuming the care of children. For more on some of these legal issues please refer to these FAQ pages at the OSCN website:

• Legal liability FAQ

• Duty of care FAQ

If I decide to not obtain Accreditation for OSCAR, what policies and forms should I still have in place?

Even if you don’t apply for accreditation, the Social Sector Accreditation Standards provide a useful set of guidelines. The practical service requirements for OSCAR are outlined in the "OSCAR Specialist Standard", which is a separate attachment to the main standards. The requirements for OSCAR in the standards include:

• Staffing ratios and minimum staffing levels, age requirements etc.

• Employment requirements including background checking and police vetting

• Health and safety requirements including emergency procedures and risk assessment

• Enrolment, attendance and sign in/out procedures

• Procedures to ensure children arrive safely from school to the programme

Link to the Social Sector Accreditation (OSCAR) standards

If you are getting ready for your first day, you might find this FAQ article useful as it covers some of the basic paperwork and systems that you should have in place. Other helpful “first day” advice, can be found in the Holiday Programme Survival Guide.

How are OSCAR services funded?

Some programmes are fully funded by fees and have entirely paid staff. Others operate on a mix of fee income, grants, donations (e.g. use of facilities at no charge) and voluntary staff. Work and Income will subsidise fees for eligible parents if they attend an accredited service, so this may offset part of the cost for some parents: Work and Income OSCAR Fee Subsidy.

The Ministry of Social Development (MSD) contributes grants to over 700 organisations that provide OSCAR services. The programmes must be approved under the Social Sector Accreditation Standards and meet other operating criteria. These grants are not usually open for new programmes, as the funds are entirely allocated to on-going contracted providers. Consideration of new services for this funding is at the discretion of MSD, should funds become available. MSD funding information

OSCAR services may also be eligible for other grants and funding assistance but information on these sources of funding is best obtained through your own local and regional funding information networks e.g. local councils, Department of Internal Affairs etc.

Further FAQs at the OSCN website.

Please contact OSCN if you have other questions.